If you've been following the BitTorrent trial in Sweden...

[Shadowpawn]

if you were rooting for the PB guys then I've got bad news.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html

They lost the case and will face about 1 year in jail each, they were also ordered to pay back 3 million to various labels for copyright infringement. The verdict also means that sites like theirs are liable for copyright infringement and if ordered to they will have to release the IPs of whoever visits their site(s).

Despite not hosting the files they were still found liable for them. The reasoning for this stemmed from a case held in the 60's where a man was holding a coat for a guy who proceeded to physical assault someone. Both the man and the assaulter were declared culpable for the crime. So with that precedent in the history of Sweden law they were found guilty.

You can read the article I linked to for more info. Thoughts?

[KodiaX987]

Time to find another country to YARRRRR from.

[Rubius-sama]

Time to find another country to YARRRRR from.

I hear Somalia is hiring.

[KodiaX987]

I said country, not grenade.

[joefro]

Torrents are bad, mkay?

Sucks for them.

[darkante]

Yeah, it really sucks. I feel they should attack the uploaders if anything, the source of all obtainable shit? Hate this freaking country.

[SabZero]

lol "bittorrent trial". oh well. the Pirate Bay guys will appeal, so it's not definate yet.

[CrimsomWolf]

Never really used torrents...

That program is far too shady and notoriously difficult to remove.

Putting all pirates behind the bars won't change a thing, nature hates vacuum (or so they say) so there will be new guys to replace them.
If anything, companies should make things easier to acquire and cheaper as well. That way, less people will think about going for torrents.

[darkante]

Some are just like SEGA(c). They don´t like putting effort.

[Kent]

if you were rooting for the PB guys
lol

Really?

[Aisha379]

Its not a matter of whats legal, ladies and gentlemen, simply its a matter of what you can get away with without being caught!

[Shadowpawn]

lol

Really?


Well, I never said I was rooting for them.

[Rubius-sama]

lol

Really?

Yes Kent, there are a lot of torrent users if you didn't notice. I'll bet including the majority of PSOW.

Not everyone has so much disposable income that they can afford to pay for every movie/game/cd that gets released, the majority of them which end up being mediocre and not worth the money to begin with. Which is why torrents are so great. I can try a game or watch a movie (or TV shows that I missed), and if I feel it's worth the price tag, I'll go out and buy it. Most of the time it isn't worth it. Not every torrent user shares the same idea, but it's a compromise that must be made.

When you buy a car, house, fridge, etc., you know exactly what you're paying for (so long as it's new), but with digital entertainment, it's a whole different story. The content we're paying for is digital, therefore not tangible. Technically, when we shell out $50 for a game, we have no idea what we're forking that money over for (and that's pretty dangerous for consumers!). Unless you're heard reviews, then you know a tiny bit, but not enough... and that's only if the reviewer wasn't paid by the producer... *cough* Gamespot *cough*.

The great video game crash of 1983 occurred because people lost faith in quality games. They would buy games without knowing how good they actually played, and most of them were half-assed lines of code rushed together. I remember going through the same thing myself with the NES generation of games.

Another example that comes to mind is Metallica -- a generally good band if you like metal. They've constantly made decent albums, and people trusted their stuff to be good, but when they came out with St. Anger, people were pissed and felt ripped off. It was complete trash. But did Metallica care? No, they walked away with stolen money.

I think of torrents as a sort of quality assurance against digital entertainment fraud, i.e. against producers putting out crap and sugar-coating / hyping it. You bet I am supporting the PB guys. Long live the pirate's bay! :D

[Kent]

You can't really justify theft by saying that products are crap and you have to sift through them - it's a valid point, but not a justification. Low-quality products exist for various reasons, be they lack of experience on part of the developers, rushing the project because the publisher wants to cash in on his investment as soon as possible, and so forth - but it doesn't change the fact that the people who made that product were probably working very hard on it, putting forth just as much in blood, sweat and tears as anyone else would've in their position.

It's relatively painless to put out a demo version of a game, but many publishers and/or producers make the call to not allow for it (budgeting and time constraints are the most common reasons). Realistically, there are much easier options for giving consideration to the purchase of a game: in the absence of a demo or trial version, you can do research, consult your past experience with the developer, consult others, watch videos, etc. to help make a judgment about the likelihood of a game being a good purchase. These kinds of methods have yet to fail me in a manner that couldn't be easily refunded (and truthfully, the occurrance of a failure here is incredibly rare), and I have a decently-sized library of games at hand, without having to resort to thievery.

But maybe I'm just lucky. :/

[joefro]

Not everyone has so much disposable income that they can afford to pay for every movie/game/cd that gets released


Then I guess people should just steal from developers and producers who have worked hard for several months/years to make a product. Why can't people just make a few sacrifices if they can't afford everything? If you want to buy a new game but you can't afford it, just work harder for it. You could work a few extra hours at work or look around for secondhand copies of a game. I believe that no matter how bad or good a product is, the people who make it deserve to get compensated for their work on it. People who torrent are all the same, "if I like it I buy it." That still doesn't change the fact the you downloaded a game illegally, then used a code that won't work for a legitimate buyer. Pirates also produce a lot of stress for the developers, especially in multiplayer games. For example, Demigod just came out this week, the game is great. When the game came out, the developers were ready for about 50,000 users, yet the games servers were extremely overloaded with 100,000+ users. How many were actually legitimate owners of the game? 18,000. For most people (myself included :-x) the game launch was terrible. The dev team for the game worked hard all week, and gave a decent patch on Friday. I'm sure a lot of the pirates won't "get" the game now, because it wasn't "good." Pirates = e p i c f a i l

[Nitro Vordex]

Well, maybe they shouldn't make bad games/music/movies. Then that wouldn't be a problem.

[Syl]

brb torrenting the world

[SabZero]

In lack of a demo, the "illegal" torrents give you a chance to gauge whether a game is any good. I doubt that people keep playing their copies of bad games anyway. That and the disastrous DRM they slap onto these things, that only punish paying customers.

The other truth is that some people will never buy any game no matter what, so any measures taken are for naught.

All the "we lost x million through piracy" is just made up bovine excrement, and they know it. They just want to wiggle out of producing ever more crap and crappy sequels to crap.

BTW, if the PB guys have to be responsible for "aiding" downloads, then so have to be Google et all.

[Zarode]

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US303&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Torrent:batman

There. Guess I better report to Sweden for 1 year of jail time and some rape, amirite?




Also, this wouldn't have been a problem if, ya know, the piratebay guys kinda just uh...


Didn't take a rock star approach to torrent sites.

[KodiaX987]

One day, all of a sudden, developers went batshit crazy over piracy and the following stuff started to happen:

http://pwar2.shurikane.com/History/20080203.png

[Rubius-sama]

Then I guess people should just steal from developers and producers who have worked hard for several months/years to make a product. Why can't people just make a few sacrifices if they can't afford everything?

The producers aren't really losing any money that they wouldn't have seen to begin with. But you're right about the second part, and that's what I do. Except I just get the ones I like, because I do have some disposable income.




You can't really justify theft by saying that products are crap and you have to sift through them - it's a valid point, but not a justification. Low-quality products exist for various reasons, be they lack of experience on part of the developers, rushing the project because the publisher wants to cash in on his investment as soon as possible, and so forth - but it doesn't change the fact that the people who made that product were probably working very hard on it, putting forth just as much in blood, sweat and tears as anyone else would've in their position.


Sure they put a lot of work into the products they're making, but this is the sort of fraud I was talking about. Sheer incompetence can't be an excuse to defend a developer. None of the above reasons can be, imo.


One day, all of a sudden, developers went batshit crazy over piracy and the following stuff started to happen:

http://pwar2.shurikane.com/History/20080203.png

ROFL, that's fucking classic. xD Thanks for sharing!

[Kent]

Sure they put a lot of work into the products they're making, but this is the sort of fraud I was talking about. Sheer incompetence can't be an excuse to defend a developer. None of the above reasons can be, imo.
It's not about incompetence, nor is it fraud unless the product just plain doesn't function. You might also notice that, save for the part of experience, it's far more likely that the developers aren't actually the ones to blame. Perhaps if you understood the game production pipeline, it'd make more sense.

Publishing contracts are set up to allow the bureaucratic part of the publishing business (because, after all, this is business we're talking about) an easier time estimating how much money they'll gain from the product if it releases on x specific date and appeals to y audience. If the developers don't meet this date then, simply put, people get very, very angry and generally will get either penalized and/or blacklisted. Those things are bad. This is why developers are always pressed for time to meet deadlines - because if they don't, the sky comes crashing down on top of them.

Cuts generally have to be made somewhere, and the polish phase of development may be sortened significantly, since it's typically on the back-end of the development process.

I think it can rightfully be said that, in a broad sense, publishers are the ones that are responsible for the majority of quality detriment in third-party games; mostly due to the fact that they wish to cash in on their investment as soon as possible... Even if it sacrifices quality. Great examples of how this has happened are Phantasy Star Universe and Guitar Hero (3 and newer).

I also think it can be rightfully said that, if they had the realistic option to, many, many more developers would take the same approach as Blizzard and Nintedo do, and release things "when they're done," despite that... Really, they may never be fully "done," but it has to get released sometime. However, this isn't an option for people without a significant reputation.

And to get a reputation like that nowadays? You either have to be godly in an epic sense at what you do, or you have to set your sights low and plan on getting things done early... The latter of which might result in a product that lacks the things gamers love so much, like extras and unlockables and depth... Which people would see as an inferior product, despite that it could very well be sound in all other senses. The fact that incredibly strict deadlines are given to basically everyone - especially when starting out - doesn't really help with this. Thusly, we get people with or without much experience, pressed for time, and releasing products that are less-than-stellar, be they solid products or not.

[Outrider]

Arguing that it's okay to download software because you don't feel like paying for it is full of lulz. I don't have the money to buy every piece of media that I want - so I only get what I can afford and I learn to live with it! I know, it's shocking.

Look, I'm not going to tell you to stop torrenting crap, but don't go pretending that downloading copyrighted material isn't stealing. It doesn't matter if you buy it afterwards or not - it's still illegal.

If you're going to do it, at least don't be in denial of it.

(Also, the argument about how everything is too expensive so that they should lower the price of software/movies/etc to increase sales - just remember that it's always going to be "too expensive" for somebody.)

[CrimsomWolf]

Yeah. In some places, the prizes are fine.

In some, they're batshit insane an everyone knows it.
American games usually look comparatively, if not much, cheaper to what I've seen at home. And it was like this even when dollar was much stronger

Which is why my country has very high piracy rate. Most do realize that it's stealing, but sometimes (especially now) it's hard to get a job, especially at young age.

[Solstis]

Arguing that it's okay to download software because you don't feel like paying for it is full of lulz. I don't have the money to buy every piece of media that I want - so I only get what I can afford and I learn to live with it! I know, it's shocking.

Look, I'm not going to tell you to stop torrenting crap, but don't go pretending that downloading copyrighted material isn't stealing. It doesn't matter if you buy it afterwards or not - it's still illegal.

If you're going to do it, at least don't be in denial of it.

(Also, the argument about how everything is too expensive so that they should lower the price of software/movies/etc to increase sales - just remember that it's always going to be "too expensive" for somebody.)

What the hell?

Get this logical crap out of here. I mean, how dare there be things that I can't afford. I demand my every gaming whim be satisfied!

By the way, you're all invited to my, like, omg, sweet 16 subprime mortage party!

[HolioArtillery]

Yar! I be a pirate! I steal shit from the interbutts and what not! Argh.

I don't care about developers, I really just don't. It was one thing when it was a handful of people or maybe just a crew of 15 that made a game, but it's not like that any more. IPs are generally shit nowadays, and everything is a rehash of a rehash while a company tries to squeeze out more money. Yes, I know pirating is illegal. I also know developers are full of shit. Sure, their shit may be legal, but frankly I'm not giving a damn. Piracy on the internet will always be around, it will never be gotten rid of. If these companies had any braincells they would realize that every time they bring attention to pirating, more people start pirating (just look at the PB history.) Developers are not in my monkeysphere, and I don't give a damn about them.

[Shadowpawn]

Well, I don't agree with either side of this argument. Using developer incompetence is not an excuse to steal their IP, it's just not. However saying the incompetence stems from internal deadlines and pressure is equally as absurd. These people are suppose to be professionals, deadlines shouldn't be that much of a concern. If you can't push out a decent product when it's due most of the time then you probably shouldn't be in development.

My only concern with this case is that it endangers the legitimate use of the BitTorrent client as a means of distribution. Instead, BitTorrent has been branded a tool used primarily to steal and this case only helps blotser that claim. Also, I don't find the proscutition reasoning to be bit absurd. If pointing a torrent makes you liable then shouldn't search engines and ISP be equally as quilty? Granted naming yourselves "The Pirate Bay" does little to help your image it shouldn't be damning enought to land jail time.

[Leviathan]

It's just so much better to pay.
I think they got off lucky, sometimes they need to pay $2,500 per what ever they gave out or downloaded.

[KodiaX987]

If you can't push out a decent product when it's due most of the time then you probably shouldn't be in development.

Unfortunately, project failures are common currency in IT development.

Going by a study (http://www.agile-software-development.com/2007/08/most-it-projects-fail-will-yours_06.html) made roughly a year ago but that is still quite accurate.

75% of IT projects are considered as failures due to either being over budget, overdue or of poor quality in the eyes of those who initiated the project. Of them, 41% are cancelled before completion (that's 31% of all IT projects.)

So get this: if you embark into a development box, there's almost a third of a chance that the software won't even see its own birth. And if it does, there's 3/4 of a chance that you'll have blown the original estimates.

To put things in perspective, here are some observations from my own workplace, in which most persons are programmers and actively working on the project:


Everyone has his own little quirks with the code. This leads to slightly uneven coding methods throughout the software.
Not everyone knows everything, leading to pieces of code being written that is far from optimal but nonetheless to the best of the programmer's knowledge.
We have hired interns who have screwed the code to such an extent that it took us longer to put it back together than it took them to ruin it.
Several customers have made demands that contradict the ones of another customer, leading to a customization module (and thus a new coding headache.)
Several customers have made demands that completely undo previous demands.


Despite us being competent people in my opinion, most of our endeavors have ended up taking more time and budget than expected, mostly due to the customer changing his mind midway through the contract, giving us incomplete information, or warning us at the last minute that they had just remembered something - and that something has the annoying tendency to require a large modification in the code. We've even had one customer knowingly send us the wrong information, only to get pissed at us later on because the wrong values were showing up in his version of the program (and we were reading directly from the file he had sent us.)

My own project: I've spent two months developing the code for my customer. I've now been spending over a month tending to all his demands and "last minute little things", giving me a task list that far exceeds the actual mandate. Fortunately, my customer's being a good sport about it and is ponying up the money for the extra development time. This is not something that happens everywhere.

Projects can even fail in manners that are completely outside of the programmer's control. I can pump out the best software in the world; if my managers screw up somewhere along the way, all my hard work will have been worth nothing. It's frustrating to know that sometimes, it takes just one or two persons to send a 40+ man project into the ground... but it happens. On a regular basis.

[Rubius-sama]

Arguing that it's okay to download software because you don't feel like paying for it is full of lulz. I don't have the money to buy every piece of media that I want - so I only get what I can afford and I learn to live with it! I know, it's shocking.

Look, I'm not going to tell you to stop torrenting crap, but don't go pretending that downloading copyrighted material isn't stealing. It doesn't matter if you buy it afterwards or not - it's still illegal.

If you're going to do it, at least don't be in denial of it.


You've got some strong opinions there, so here's some digest.

So, in your opinion, it would be best if pirates acknowledge their activities are illegal? I have no problems with that, but first you'd have to show me where it says that in Canadian Law (as I'm Canadian). I've never heard of it.

Also, let's say I did acknowledge that it constitutes to stealing. In your opinion, should developers/publishers also acknowledge that selling broken digital media products is just legal "theft" of loyal consumers' money? If no, why not?

Do you think it's immoral of them? If no, why not?

[Kent]

Well, I don't agree with either side of this argument. Using developer incompetence is not an excuse to steal their IP, it's just not. However saying the incompetence stems from internal deadlines and pressure is equally as absurd.
Incompetence was not part of my argument, nor was I ever defending it. Incompetence is rarely (and I certainly do mean rarely) the issue here for commercially-released products.

Big Rigs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rigs:_Over_the_Road_Racing) is an example of incompetence. If a commercial game gets released on any major platform and people think it sucks or doesn't live up to its potential, it's almost absurd to think it would be due to incompetence.

[Rubius-sama]

Incompetence was not part of my argument, nor was I ever defending it. Incompetence is rarely (and I certainly do mean rarely) the issue here for commercially-released products.

Big Rigs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rigs:_Over_the_Road_Racing) is an example of incompetence. If a commercial game gets released on any major platform and people think it sucks or doesn't live up to its potential, it's almost absurd to think it would be due to incompetence.

What's the difference to the consumer?

Between incompetence and any other reason? Games that SUCK, and I mean SUCK ASS (80% of games) shouldn't sell for full retail price if they aren't putting in full effort/money.

So what's the difference to the consumer?

[Kent]

You've got some strong opinions there, so here's some digest.

So, in your opinion, it would be best if pirates acknowledge their activities are illegal? I have no problems with that, but first you'd have to show me where it says that in Canadian Law (as I'm Canadian). I've never heard of it.

Also, let's say I did acknowledge that it constitutes to stealing. In your opinion, should developers/publishers also acknowledge that selling broken digital media products is just legal "theft" of loyal consumers' money? If no, why not?

Do you think it's immoral of them? If no, why not?
Pirates would have to be idiots to say that violating copyright law isn't illegal. If they admitted that what they were doing was illegal (which it is), then at least the rest of us would know that they're capable of some modicum of rational thinking.

By the way, Canada complies to International Copyright Laws set in place by the World Trade Organization. Under these laws, software piracy and other forms of copyright infringement are illegal.

Broken digital media? If it is in fact functionally-impaired and will not work, then you're entitled to an exchange and, in some cases, a refund, and you're able to file complaints through serious channels such as the Better Business Bureau. However, if this is stupidty on part of the end-user not reading the requirements for it or something, then you may be eligible for an exchange or refund, based on the product and the seller.

At least, that's what it is in most US states. Specific situations call for specific measures, of course.

What's the difference to the consumer?

Between incompetence and any other reason? Games that SUCK, and I mean SUCK ASS (80% of games) shouldn't sell for full retail price if they aren't putting in full effort/money.

So what's the difference to the consumer?
Consumers who are at least moderately intelligent can tell the difference between a product that works and doesn't suit their tastes, and a product that is borderline functional.

[Outrider]

You've got some strong opinions there, so here's some digest.

So, in your opinion, it would be best if pirates acknowledge their activities are illegal? I have no problems with that, but first you'd have to show me where it says that in Canadian Law (as I'm Canadian). I've never heard of it.

Also, let's say I did acknowledge that it constitutes to stealing. In your opinion, should developers/publishers also acknowledge that selling broken digital media products is just legal "theft" of loyal consumers' money? If no, why not?

Do you think it's immoral of them? If no, why not?

Hey look, it's a google search! (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=canadian+copyright+law)

Saying you dislike a game doesn't mean that it's "broken." And no, selling a product that doesn't meet your standards is not "theft" of your money. That's using a metaphor as the literal definition of a word.

It was your decision to buy the product. So long as the developer/publisher/whatever never outright lied ("This will automatically make your life 100% better in every way!"), then there's nothing illegal happening.

Do I think there are products out there that aren't worth the price they charge? Of course. My answer is I just don't buy them, or I wait for a price drop. Just because I might feel cheated by spending money on something that wasn't worth it (Hello there, full-priced PSO Ep. III), doesn't mean I was literally cheated.

There are certainly "amoral" businessmen out there, and it would be nice if they weren't able to give people false hope by hyping a poor product or by doing any number of things like that, but the logic of "two wrongs make a right" doesn't really hold much water when it comes to whether something is legal or not.

[Solstis]

I still don't understand Rubius' logic.

Is he only downloading terrible games? Did he never research games before purchasing, i.e., is a terrible consumer? So far, all I'm seeing is that some developers release terrible games, and that's why he favors pirating.

Maybe I'm just thrifty or cheap, but the last game I purchased was Fallout 3, and that was about 2 months ago. Or, maybe I just don't have an entitlement complex.

As far as torrenting itself, there are a lot of legit things you can get through them, and they definitely are going to stick around, lawsuits or not.

[KodiaX987]

Unfortunately, you cannot seek retribution for a lemon. If the game is so badly made that it's unplayable, you can bitch, scream and while all you want - the devs and the publisher will not do anything about it unless they find that making a patch will allow them to turn a profit.

It sucks, but that's the way it is.

What I fail to understand is why the majority of persons do not test drive games before playing them. That's what one does for a new car, so why not on a game? If it's on a console, rent it for a weekend. If it's on PC, download the demo or view gameplay videos online. But most of all, know what you want.

I've seen countless people buy Battlefield 2142 thinking it was some sort of MMO. I've seen people buy Team Fortress 2 thinking it was the next Call of Duty 4 in style. The biggest complaints I see about games I play are from people who simply did not know what they were buying, and get disappointed because they couldn't do their own fucking research.

A game publisher cannot say "Our game sucks so we'll discount it." Never gonna happen. A game publisher will say "Our game isn't selling, so we'll discount it to liquidate our stock." Hence why tons of 10$ games in the slush pile. Not because they are badly made, but because no one buys them. Economy, pure and hard.

There are cases where a game has never worked on a person's machine for various reasons. Too bad, so sad. A dev is not in the obligation to make the product work on every machine. There is no law that forces it to do so. Your only option is to simply not buy from those devs again and move on. Do not hold your breath for a law on software quality, because with the countless hardware combos you can put together, no one in his right mind would dare tackle the problem - and imagine the equally countless ways one could exploit the loopholes in such a system.

[jShazBot]

I bet now that those evil evil men are in jail everyone will stop pirating. And we will now live in a world without piracy.

[Rubius-sama]

I was going to make a long reply but I'll just post this.

http://maximumpc.com/files/u69/Pirate_Protest_0.png

I'm the guy holding the Jolly Roger.

[Outrider]

I was going to make a long reply but I'll just post this.

http://maximumpc.com/files/u69/Pirate_Protest_0.png

I'm the guy holding the Jolly Roger.

Good for you?

[CrimsomWolf]

So you're uhhh...British Submarine that scored fresh kill?

Piracy existed and will continue to exist, no security measure, regardless of how tough it is, will stop it.

Truth to be told, many people don't care or don't quite get it that it's a... well a crime. Of sort, but still not-quite-legal.

But there's a lot of "social incentive". A good deal of people don't see what's wrong with torrenting (or generally downloading or buying pirated software), and simply pity those caught as "unlucky ones". It's hard to fight some social/judicatory issue if populous allows to a degree for laws to be broken/bended.

Which reminds me, Canada's one of worst places when copyright laws are concerned, along with Russia and few other countries. Or at least, was.

[Shadowpawn]

Judge who oversaw case has two memberships in pro-Copyright groups, including one who was involved in the case. Case could be thrown out as a mistrial, what a twist!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateconflict.html

[Rubius-sama]

Judge who oversaw case has two memberships in pro-Copyright groups, including one who was involved in the case. Case could be thrown out as a mistrial, what a twist!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateconflict.html



Fucking awesome!

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9473/cyborgpirateninjajesusa.jpg

No Mercy on media moguls!!!

[HolioArtillery]

I don't care who you are, that image is just plain stupid and an insult to criminal pirates everywhere.

[Rubius-sama]

I don't care who you are, that image is just plain stupid and an insult to criminal pirates everywhere.

Call me Cap'n Jack Frosty :)

[Sayara]

it doesn't make any sense!

[SabZero]

A twist, indeed. Said the judge "I don't think there is a conflict of interest". That's why no one asked you, doofus.

[Kent]

Judge who oversaw case has two memberships in pro-Copyright groups, including one who was involved in the case. Case could be thrown out as a mistrial, what a twist!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateconflict.html
Because obviously, a judge - whose job is to uphold laws - has no business being part of an organization whose priorities are against... breaking the law.

Though a Judge is supposed to be impartial to the case at hand (as is a Jury), I can't honestly see this making a difference in the case. Mainly because copyright infringement is still copyright infringement.

[Shadowpawn]

Because obviously, a judge - whose job is to uphold laws - has no business being part of an organization whose priorities are against... breaking the law.

Though a Judge is supposed to be impartial to the case at hand (as is a Jury), I can't honestly see this making a difference in the case. Mainly because copyright infringement is still copyright infringement.

The article said the same thing, but the fact that he wasn't impartial is the thing that has this up in the air.

[Solstis]

I get it. Rubius is too hardcore for us simple-minded yokels.

Yes, I do believe that organizations such as the RIAA are basically a torch-bearing mob, but I get the feeling that the e-pirates are the other side of the "look at what I'm doing!" coin.

[Shadowpawn]

Come to think of it, Kent, this entire trial was trying to determine if what the Pirate Bay was doing was illegal in the first place. If the Judge wasn't impartial then could anyone say the verdict has any real merit? You can't say it's illegal if the case was trying to set that precedent. I think that's why this is a pretty big twist.

[Outrider]

Come to think of it, Kent, this entire trial was trying to determine if what the Pirate Bay was doing was illegal in the first place. If the Judge wasn't impartial then could anyone say the verdict has any real merit? You can't say it's illegal if the case was trying to set that precedent. I think that's why this is a pretty big twist.

Yeah, it doesn't matter how clear cut the case may seem - I'm pretty sure if they can establish the conflict of interest, that'll give them a leg up.

They'll probably just have to go to court again and will end up with the same verdict, but it would be with a different judge.

[SabZero]

Hm, in some countries you can't be tried for the same crime twice.

Anyway, the evidence in the case was quite shoddy too. First of all, the guys aren't a company or even that close. And, as was said, any search engine would fall under the same rule.

[Kent]

Hm, in some countries you can't be tried for the same crime twice.

Anyway, the evidence in the case was quite shoddy too. First of all, the guys aren't a company or even that close. And, as was said, any search engine would fall under the same rule.
...Except that The Pirate Bay isn't a search engine in the same sense that, say, Google is. The Pirate Bay hosts the actual torrent files, which are used by a BitTorrent client to connect to peers to share material. Search engines like Google, Live, etc. don't store any of those files themselves, they just search their own databases that they've compiled from searching the internet through automated means.

Whereas Google will scour the internet for the terms for which it has been queried (and provide links to webpages), The Pirate Bay searches its own server for files that match the query (and link to downloads of said files from itself).

[Shadowpawn]

That's still very similar to a normal search engine, it just happens to be more efficient at finding warez due to torrents, that's all. That doesn't change the fact that they aren't hosting the warez on their servers.

[HolioArtillery]

That doesn't change the fact that they aren't hosting the warez on their servers.

That is true, and that's why the first half of the charges were dropped. The remaining charge, that they had aided the distribution of copyrighted material, is what took so long to debate and is what they were charged guilty of. Because they hosted torrent trackers for pirates, they were aiding in the distribution. This is not like a google search at all because google is not giving you access to any sort of file. They just provide a link to reach a website, not to save anything.

[Kent]

That's still very similar to a normal search engine, it just happens to be more efficient at finding warez due to torrents, that's all. That doesn't change the fact that they aren't hosting the warez on their servers.
My point was that The Pirate Bay searches itself for the torrent files, whereas something like Google searches many other servers for strings of characters that match the query (not just torrent files).

[Randomness]

...Except that The Pirate Bay isn't a search engine in the same sense that, say, Google is. The Pirate Bay hosts the actual torrent files, which are used by a BitTorrent client to connect to peers to share material. Search engines like Google, Live, etc. don't store any of those files themselves, they just search their own databases that they've compiled from searching the internet through automated means.

Whereas Google will scour the internet for the terms for which it has been queried (and provide links to webpages), The Pirate Bay searches its own server for files that match the query (and link to downloads of said files from itself).

Actually, Google stores a great deal of the content it searches through on its servers. If you look under each result, there's usually an option to view a cached version. Which, if you look at the URL, is on Google's servers.

[Rubius-sama]

Actually, Google stores a great deal of the content it searches through on its servers. If you look under each result, there's usually an option to view a cached version. Which, if you look at the URL, is on Google's servers.

Yup, and search engines such as Google can delete any "search result" from appearing on their site.

Shhh... Run to the Hills is playing.

[Randomness]

Yup, and search engines such as Google can delete any "search result" from appearing on their site.

Shhh... Run to the Hills is playing.

As evidenced by the whole China situation...

[Rubius-sama]

As evidenced by the whole China situation...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm

Yup, so they could easily filter out the word "torrent".

[Shadowpawn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm

Yup, so they could easily filter out the word "torrent".

That would go against their "Don't be evil" policy though. I know the thing with China violates that too and Google even acknowledges it as such. However they wouldn't get a chance to enter and compete as a business in China if they didn't comply.

Since they don't have to filler anything in the U.S. or other capitalist nations they really don't feel the need to do so.

[Nitro Vordex]

I wonder if developers/producers actually realize how much money they're losing, and the problems behind this.

Let's say I bought System of a Down's Toxicity album, which has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity_(album)) Let's set the price of the album to $15.99, not including tax.

Putting in this sales figure, let's come to this: $15.99*12,000,000. Whic comes out to be $191,880,000.

Now, unfortunately there's production costs and other things, such as studio rental, equipment, sound crew, management, the producing company, etc. and since I don't know accurately what that is, I'll make a very bad estimate and say that drops the money to about $189,000,000. Now, I can't make a reasonable estimate as to the numbers for who torrented it, so, let's say that the album was pirated about...10,000 times. Again, this might be a high or low number, so don't hold me to it.

Now, you've got $15.99*10,000, which comes out to be $159,900. Subtract $159,900 from $189,000,000 and you get $188,840,100. This isn't much of a loss. At all.

"Well Nitro, you DO realize that there's WAY more pirates than that, right?" Of course I do! Let's go ahead and dramatically increase the numbers of pirates to, oh, 100,000.

Math time. 100,000*15.99 comes out to be $1,599,000, which subtracted from $189,000,000 becomes $187,401,000. Alright, that's a bit more of a loss. Now, let's make that number even bigger! One million pirates! And for the sake of saving space (and the magic of TV!) that comes out to be $15,990,000! Take THAT fom the original number and that's $173,010,000. That's quite a bit of a loss.

Stop. Think about everything you've just read. What do those sales figures mean to the artist, who just lost a bunch of money, because people couldn't go out and buy the album?

Now what do those mean to you? You might have formed opinions along the lines of "Oh that sucks, I wish people didn't do that," or, "Big deal, they're making MILLIONS!"

Except no one cares about your opinion.

Those people who pirated, no matter what you think, are stealing. Those figures, are actually completely irrelevant, as unfortunately, this arguement is about the ethics of torrenting, and getting music for free when you're supposed to be paying for it. Yes, the idea of people getting their bands out the is legitamate as a point, but not a valid reason, as those bands could be getting out there and making the money they're supposed to make. In many senses, this applies to game developers and movie producers as well.

tl;dr: Stealing is still stealing, no matter how you look at it. Nitro attempts a wall o' text.

Also, if this has no relevance. please tell me. I totally tried, I swear.

[beatrixkiddo]

I wonder if developers/producers actually realize how much money they're losing, and the problems behind this.

Let's say I bought System of a Down's Toxicity album, which has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity_(album)) Let's set the price of the album to $15.99, not including tax.

Putting in this sales figure, let's come to this: $15.99*12,000,000. Whic comes out to be $191,880,000.

Now, unfortunately there's production costs and other things, such as studio rental, equipment, sound crew, management, the producing company, etc. and since I don't know accurately what that is, I'll make a very bad estimate and say that drops the money to about $189,000,000. Now, I can't make a reasonable estimate as to the numbers for who torrented it, so, let's say that the album was pirated about...10,000 times. Again, this might be a high or low number, so don't hold me to it.

Now, you've got $15.99*10,000, which comes out to be $159,900. Subtract $159,900 from $189,000,000 and you get $188,840,100. This isn't much of a loss. At all.

"Well Nitro, you DO realize that there's WAY more pirates than that, right?" Of course I do! Let's go ahead and dramatically increase the numbers of pirates to, oh, 100,000.

Math time. 100,000*15.99 comes out to be $1,599,000, which subtracted from $189,000,000 becomes $187,401,000. Alright, that's a bit more of a loss. Now, let's make that number even bigger! One million pirates! And for the sake of saving space (and the magic of TV!) that comes out to be $15,990,000! Take THAT fom the original number and that's $173,010,000. That's quite a bit of a loss.

Stop. Think about everything you've just read. What do those sales figures mean to the artist, who just lost a bunch of money, because people couldn't go out and buy the album?

Now what do those mean to you? You might have formed opinions along the lines of "Oh that sucks, I wish people didn't do that," or, "Big deal, they're making MILLIONS!"

Except no one cares about your opinion.

Those people who pirated, no matter what you think, are stealing. Those figures, are actually completely irrelevant, as unfortunately, this arguement is about the ethics of torrenting, and getting music for free when you're supposed to be paying for it. Yes, the idea of people getting their bands out the is legitamate as a point, but not a valid reason, as those bands could be getting out there and making the money they're supposed to make. In many senses, this applies to game developers and movie producers as well.

tl;dr: Stealing is still stealing, no matter how you look at it. Nitro attempts a wall o' text.

Also, if this has no relevance. please tell me. I totally tried, I swear.

The artist won't care too much, as out of those hundreds of millions, their label takes most of it :D

[SabZero]

That's what we call a milk maids math. You can't say, this is the number of downloads, so this is also the number of lost sales. It doesn't work like that, not even almost.

They also can't say, that they sold less only because of piracy. That's bovine excrement. No way it could be because the thing they're selling is sub-par and overpriced. Also, some people buy the game, and have to resort to download the cracked version in order to play it. That's how twisted the situation has become.

But it's easier to bullylobby governments to dance to their tune like monkeys then change themselves.

[Outrider]

Right, but again, as Nitro and others have pointed out, it doesn't matter how bad the product is or how self-righteous you want to get; Stealing is still stealing.

[Rubius-sama]

Stealing is still stealing.

Outrider's Dictionary

Eating: To eat food.
Run: When a person runs.
Fun: When you're having fun.
Awesome: When something is really awesome.
Computer: Any computer device.
Downloading: Stealing.
Stealing: Still stealing.

Now you should try taking an advanced algebra and discrete mathematics course using the same logic. Let us know how you do ;)

[Nitro Vordex]

and since I don't know accurately what that is, I'll make a very bad estimate

I can't make a reasonable estimate as to the numbers for who torrented it,

And for Sab Zero who didn't get the point of the wall of text:

Those people who pirated, no matter what you think, are stealing. Those figures, are actually completely irrelevant, as unfortunately, this arguement is about the ethics of torrenting, and getting music for free when you're supposed to be paying for it.

Also, downloading=/= stealing. Derp.

[amtalx]

Personally I'm cheering for Pirate Bay. I quite justifiably downloaded a Soundgarden discography because it takes less time and effort to download it than it does to rip all the albums - every one of which I own, even some rare ones that weren't in the torrent. That's not to say that I don't pirate the crap out of other things. However, like most pirates, I rarely if ever pirate something I would buy.

Pirate some shit PC game I want to try for the hell of it? Sure. My curiosity isn't worth $50 though. Its not like the devs are losing money, because I wouldn't have bought it to begin with.

[SabZero]

I got the point, it was more an addition to it. And you know the rights-holders (as opposed to the artists) are making math like this all the time.

Anyway, it's an explanation, more then a justification.

I think people grow out of it once they enter the work world themselves. Appreciating the worth of a buck, so to speak.

Hm, a good use of piracy I think, is older stuff, that is no longer available new and factory sealed for a reasonable price (screw collectors worth) - like abandonware. Sure, I could go to ebay, toil for months to get a how-many-hands-copy of a game for four times the price it retailed for. But, the people that made it, not even the distributors are getting one cent of that. So why do they even bother. sigh. Oh right, remakes. :/

[Outrider]

Outrider's Dictionary

Eating: To eat food.
Run: When a person runs.
Fun: When you're having fun.
Awesome: When something is really awesome.
Computer: Any computer device.
Downloading: Stealing.
Stealing: Still stealing.

Now you should try taking an advanced algebra and discrete mathematics course using the same logic. Let us know how you do ;)

That's adorable. You think you made a funny!

(EDIT: No, let's go the educational route.)

Rubius, you've already shown that you don't understand how copyright law works as well as the fact that you're delusional in your (perceived) right to obtain media on your own terms, so I'll try again to explain this. What everyone has been pointing out to you and others in this thread is that regardless of how an individual feels about paying for media (whether it's reluctance to pay for something because you're not sure if you'll like it or it's about paying for something that's not worth the money), it's against the law to download that media unless the rights management allows for it to be downloaded freely.

Unless a game/album/movie is released for free consumption, if you're downloading a copy of it for free, you're breaking the law. It doesn't matter if you're just downloading it to try it before buying it, it doesn't matter if you're downloading it because you don't think it's worth the money, and it doesn't matter if the developer/label/etc is still going to make a ton of money.

I really don't think there's any clearer way to explain this. You seem to think that people on this forum care whether you torrent things or not - they don't. None of us do. We're neither going to scold you or praise you for it. But your logic is seriously flawed, and we're pointing that out to you.

[SabZero]

On the breaking the law bit - a few years back it *was* perfectly legal (in Germany) to give a copy of a CD to your family and friends. It was also legal to record a song off the radio to listen to it in your walkman. It was also legal to make multiple backup copies of software.

They want their cake and eat it too - sell you a license to listen to a sng once, and only once. You get to have nothing. An automatic debit from your bank account whenenver you even get in contact with some IP, is their wet dream. They also screw the artists over, don't forget that.

Edit: obviously, everyone can talk about this until their faces are blue. I

n truth I think they can't control the entire populace, over something that is not a crime (as in, a crime against the people of a country) unless coprorations control the government and implelent an IP police state. There's a different solution to that problem, and IMO it includes getting rid of the likes of RIAA or whats their faces. It's not right they get to make money off someone that's been dead for a century (this is about them pushing to get the copyright time extended further and further after the creators death).